Humans have been attempting to make sense of drunken speech since, well, since they started getting drunk. And now, with the emergence of AI and Natural Language Processing, machines may have a shot at understanding it too. That's right, AI is now being tested to see if it can make sense of drunken speech. In this blog article, we'll take a look at how AI can learn to understand human drunken speech, and some of the challenges and applications that this technology presents. So let's get AI smashed!
What Makes Drunken Speech Different
Our speech changes, dare I say disintegrates, the more inebriated we become. Fortunately for us, there are some shared characteristics between everyone staring down the double-barrelled shotgun of Action & Consequence.
Harry Hollien and colleagues set out to perform the simple yet daunting task of dispensing controlled amounts of alcohol (the daunting part) to a group of young adults (the simple part) in a 2001 study titled "Effects of ethanol intoxication on speech suprasegmentals." Or as I like to call them the Tipsy Tongue Trials, which I feel is a missed branding opportunity.
Hollien & Co. (makes me think of higher-end casual wear. Another missed branding opportunity) came away with three baseline characteristics they were able to quantify through the experimentation.
1. The 'fundamental frequency' of an individual's voice pitches up the more you drink.
1b. This has the added effect of explaining why people think they can hit the high note, when in the fact they can not.
2. The speaking rate slows, as sleepy time grows (sorry).
2b. Fun fact men slow down the most between 0.04 and 0.08 and women at 0.08 and 0.12
3. Your mouth stops working properly with increased stammers, stutters, snags and the occasional "foot wedged-in-mouth"
3b. The severely intoxicated (aka regretful) experience a rate of speech errors almost triple the norm.
Introduction to AI and Natural Language Processing
AI, or artificial intelligence, is a type of computer technology that mimics the cognitive functions of humans, minus the predilection for getting "krunked", such as learning and problem-solving. The two main things that are needed to deal with drunken speech. AI is used in many areas of research and development, including robotics, gaming, and natural language processing (NLP). NLP is a subfield of AI that focuses on understanding and interpreting human language. It enables machines to accurately interpret and understand spoken and written language, as well as to generate responses in natural language. Not only do we have the ability to process drunken language, but we can also communicate back, drunkenly. There's power here. I can see the infinite loop of drunken drive-thru ordering and drunken AI responses. I think this is how Infinite Energy happens.
AI and Drunken Speech: How Does It Work?
To make sense of human drunken speech, AI must be able to distinguish between normal and drunken speech. An easy task for a bartender, and a difficult task for a machine. Drunken speech is often slurred and incoherent, making it difficult for machines to interpret, less so for the graveyard shift at Taco Bell. To tackle this challenge, researchers have developed Long-Short Term Memory Networks (LSTMs), a type of deep learning architecture that is designed to remember information for long periods.
LSTMs are used to process large amounts of data, such as audio recordings of drunken speech (I would pay to have this data labeling job). By analyzing the recordings, the LSTMs can recognize different characteristics of drunken speech, such as slurring, mispronunciation, word substitution and the REAL reason Ashleigh is stepping out on Brian. This enables the AI to understand and interpret drunken speech more accurately (and get the gossip).
How AI Can Learn to Understand Human Drunken Speech
Once the AI has been trained to recognize drunken speech, it can then be used to interpret and understand it and not pass any moral judgment. AI-based solutions such as ChatGPT and Chatsonic are being developed to enable machines to accurately interpret and understand human drunken speech.
ChatGPT is a natural language processing (NLP) system that uses a recurrent neural network (RNN) to learn language from conversations. It is designed to interpret and understand human conversations, including drunken speech. Chatsonic is another AI-based speech-to-text (also based on GPT 3.5) solution that uses a deep learning model to understand human conversations. It can accurately interpret and understand drunken speech by analyzing the audio recordings.
Challenges of AI-based Speech-to-Text Solutions for Drunken Speech
AI-based solutions still have some challenges that need to be addressed. Firstly, these solutions require large amounts of training data to be effective. This means that they need to be trained on a large number of audio recordings of drunken speech to learn how to accurately interpret and understand it. Which in turn leads to the toughest and potentially most fun audio transcribing and data labeling task known to Man. We could simply put devices in bars across America consisting of a selfie station (if you don't know what that is that's okay, I probably shouldn't either) that says "Tell Us Your Thoughts", a microphone and let it rip. This would also be the Most Successful Data Gathering Effort in Human History.
Applications of AI-based Speech-to-Text Solutions for Drunken Speech
AI-based solutions for understanding drunken speech have numerous applications. You could prevent drunk texting by enabling an audio passphrase, too tipsy, no text-y. Food establishments could automate front-of-house to deal with tanked takeouts. In the future, solutions could be used in self-driving cars to help the car understand and get the driver home regardless if they want to go to their Ex's house or not. This is the Johnny Cab Total Recall needed.
In addition, AI-based drunk speech solutions can be used to help doctors and nurses better understand and interpret patient speech, whether they're impaired from a medical condition or overindulgence. Ultimately, AI-based solutions for understanding drunken speech can help make the world a safer and more efficient place.
Conclusion
In conclusion, AI-based solutions for understanding drunken speech have the potential to revolutionize the way we interact with machines. By training AI on large amounts of besotted bytes, and by utilizing advanced speech technologies, AI-based solutions can accurately interpret and understand human drunken speech. So let's get AI smashed!